A reminder of the greatest love ever witnessed

This is the last issue of The Catholic  Week before Christmas.
I hope and pray that you and your family have a blessed Christmas.  You know, it is really stunning when we stop to realize what we are celebrating.  We had become alienated from God because of our sin.  While we were still sinners, the God of the universe stormed into human history so that He could reconcile us to the Father.
This is particularly striking because God tends to be slow to intervene in human affairs.  It is not that He is aloof or uncaring.  Rather, He values and safeguards human freedom.  God desires us to love Him and for us to become His sons and daughters.  That is only possible if He gives us freedom to respond to His love with our own love. Without freedom we could not love Him in response; we would only be able to serve Him.
God left us free and we abused that freedom.  However, God did not let our selfish choices be the final word.  The Divine Word becomes a man like us in all things but sin.  He enters into our mortal condition precisely so that He can pay the price for our disobedience and our lack of love.  Christmas is when we celebrate God breaking into time and walking with us and ultimately dying for us.
Santa Claus is a popular figure.  He brings presents and expects nothing in return.  He is willing to be ignored and taken for granted.  But the reality of what Jesus does for us is so much greater, so much richer and so much more costly.  God storms into human history to save us from ourselves and our sinful choices.
I look around the world and I see what a world without God can look like, and I don’t like it.  Christmas is a reminder of the greatest love ever witnessed; namely the Incarnation.  God becomes flesh and takes on the nature of one of His creatures, so that He can die and reconcile them to the Father.  Wow!   This is cause for a great celebration…so get to it!  Merry Christmas.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
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